Indelible Stains
by Dragon's Daughter 1980
Summary: There are some marks you can never wash away. There are some memories you can never forget. There are some people you can never lose.
1. Chapter 1

**Indelible Stains**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Author's Note**: As part of a color fic meme, I was given the prompt _John/Elizabeth, blood-red_

* * *

She stares at her hands, stained with rapidly drying liquid, and swallows down her bile. It's almost like paint in a way, except for the way it has turned brown—a chemical reaction with the air—and its smell, the air is full of its metallic scent.

She starts when slender and calloused fingers take her hands in a gentle grip, and she looks up into understanding, pained brown eyes. Teyla then dips her head, wordlessly setting herself to the task of cleaning her bloodstained hands. A part of her detachedly remarks that she should do it herself, rather than let the young Athosian leader do such a menial task, but when she tries to pull her hands back into her lap, Teyla adamantly refuses to let go. Instead, she begins to speak in a low voice, confessing the sequence of events that has led to John's blood staining both of their hands.

This isn't the first time he has been seriously injured on a mission. She prays it is and isn't going to be the last. So many other examples of missions-gone-FUBAR spring to mind that she thinks it's almost like the universe has a perpetual grudge against him. She needs to know that he will be all right. She needs to hear Carson's soothing brogue telling her that John's a "stubborn bastard" and he'll pull through, he'll defy the odds. Her eyes drift to the closed doors of the infirmary's operating rooms, and she sighs quietly. The mission had begun so normally—of course it would, trouble always comes without warning—before the shooting had started. Then the panicked scramble for safety had begun—Rodney being shoved forward first, Teyla's hand urging him onwards while Ronon and John worked to cut down their pursuers.

He had lectured her over and over again about safety protocols and staying out of the way when teams came in hot. She had promised him, as many times as he made her, that she would let Lorne bundle her away to safety if needed. She had told him that she would stay out of the way, out of danger, when trouble came through the 'gate. All of those promises had flown out of her head the moment Rodney dragged him through open wormhole, limp and pale, his tac vest stained a dark crimson.

It had been instinct that had drawn her to his side, her knees giving out on her as she collapsed next to Rodney, meeting her friend's frantic eyes over the prone body of her lover. Rodney, talkative, acidic Rodney, had been struck silent, his eyes spilling out everything he didn't know how to say to her. She read his terror, his anger and frustration and his guilt because John had stepped in front of a bullet for him.

John would step in front of a bullet for any and all of them. She wishes sometimes that he knew that his team would do the same. She wishes he knew that she would do the same for him. That thought doesn't scare her as much as it would have when their relationship first started. She's seen enough to know that sometimes, there are things—ideals, beliefs, _people_—worth dying for. For her, he is one of them, and while that thought ought to terrify her (because she knows he would never forgive her for not putting the city and their people first), she's sick and tired of pretending she doesn't care when he could be dying. She doesn't want to have to hide her open wounds and her stolen moments by his bedside.

She wants to be with him for as long as they have, because bleeding together is better than bleeding alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Indelible Stains**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Author's Note**: As part of a color fic meme, I was given the prompt _John/Elizabeth, blood-red_

He stares at the crimson pool that covers the floor, and wonders if it would be possible to ask anyone to clean it up before it stains the tiles. The starlight that dances into the debris-strewn Control Room does little to soften the harshness of the sight before him. His worst nightmare has come true. There has been so much blood spilled for the sake of their expedition, for the sake of their people, for the sake of their survival…maybe it had only before a matter of time before it was her blood being spilled. He knows that she bleeds alongside every person she sends into danger, yet now the universe seems to be taking perverse pleasure in exacting its revenge, drop for drop, ruthlessly staining her scarlet blouse an even darker shade of burgundy.

Aside from a few brief instances in their first year in the city, she has always worn bright crimson when she's on-duty. It's her way of making herself easily identifiable among the masses of military gray, science blues and medical yellows that populate the expedition. She's explained to him that this is a tactical decision, so that people can find her quickly in emergencies and chaos. It's a color that catches the eye, and as the leader of the city, she needs to be readily seen when all hell breaks loose. There's no point in blending into her surroundings when she needs to be able to rally the troops on a moment's notice, or get people to obey her without question. She's worked at making crimson synonymous with her leadership.

He's argued with her, over and over again, that she can't wear red. The benefit she derives from wearing the color is also a danger. It makes her too visible in the crowd, too easy a target for an attacker to pick out and focus on. He can't protect her adequately if she insists on wearing a giant bull's-eye on her back. She always volleys back that she only wears red on Atlantis; she blends in with her escort when she's off-world. Implicit in that argument is her unwavering faith that he will keep the city safe from any invaders, which means that she will also, by logical extension, be safe. When she uses that line of reasoning with him, he hesitates every time before he presses on, because no matter how many times he hears it, it still shakes him to the core at how deeply she trusts him with everything she holds dear. When she tires of arguing with him, she silences him with a curt gesture or an abrupt kiss. The former was before they'd decided to quit dancing around their mutual attraction to one another and the latter was after, when they've finally decided that their relationship isn't anywhere near the casual sex they've pretended it is.

He doesn't know when they went from exclusive stress relief between friends to a relationship that borders on engagement. Long before the two of them kissed for the first time, the lines between professional and personal, friendship and romance blurred, if they had ever existed in the first place. Blood has always run hot between them, from passion, from anger, from concern, from love. It's never been simple when it comes to them, who they are and what exists between them.

They've always known the risks he runs—some of the foolish, most of them necessary—to keep Atlantis safe. He knows it's her fear that he will leave her behind one day, and she'll be left to carry on alone. He has always told her that she's strong enough to endure. On those nights, he swears that he'll always be with her, even as he holds on to her a little tighter in the darkness as he prays to any powers out there to grant them more time together. Now time has run out for them, but not for him, not for him when, by all measures of possibility, it ought to have been him.

He supposes that he's always accepted the idea that he will die first—in defense of the city, from old age, in an incredibly idiotic, reckless but necessary act to protect his team—there are a myriad of ways he imagines that he might go. It's only in his darkest dreams that she dies in his arms, with him powerless to protect her when he should have saved her, kept her safe. But no matter how many times the dream comes, he always has comforted himself with the knowledge that it is only a dream and never a reality. She is safe because the city is safe, and he will do all that he can to ensure it remains that way. That is the vow he makes every morning before he rises and the prayer he makes every night before he sleeps. He's always had a bargain with the universe that he'll take whatever it throws at him as long as it leaves her alone. That fragile peace was shattered hours ago when she fell in a hail of glass shards.

Now her blood is staining the ground, and his heart is faltering along with hers.

No miracle can save them now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Indelible Stains**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Author's Note**: As part of a color fic meme, I was given the prompt _John/Elizabeth, blood-red._ Thank you to everyone who has put this on their favorites list, reviewed, or just simply followed along. There will be one more part after this chapter. Enjoy.

* * *

Sitting in her darkened office, Jennifer stares at the full bottle of whiskey and its accompanying crystal tumbler on her desk. Her mind is blank, thoughts flittering in and out of her brain like deranged butterflies riding out an enzyme-high. She's been surgery for sixteen hours straight, followed by four hours of debriefing, three of which were spent being yelled at by some self-righteous bastard safely tucked away in a high-security building on Earth. If she had the energy, she would be justifiably furious at some of the accusations leveled at her reputation and character, but she doesn't. Right now, she teeters between passing out from sheer exhaustion and existing past her fatigue. Either way, she wills herself not to think and pretends the world outside her darkened corner doesn't exist.

It doesn't work.

There are images that have been seared into her memory over the years. Some have thankfully faded with time, but others have lingered in her nightmares. Most of them are her darkest fears playing out in her dreams, and others are memories that will never leave her, scars she will carry to her grave like the marks on her skin.

She knows as a doctor, she can't save everyone, and that she won't be able to save everyone. Even on Earth, the safest planet in possibly three galaxies, that's true, and here in Pegasus, it's a harsh lesson any newcomer learns the moment they see the lifeless shell of entire civilizations brought to their knees by the Wraith. She knows that she will not always triumph against Death, and she forgives herself of those she could never have helped. But there are nights of darkness when she lies awake in her bed and remembers everyone she could've saved, should've saved, and failed to save. The problem right now is that she doesn't know the outcome of today.

As if her mind is stuck on constant loop, the scene in the 'gate room repeats over and over again in her head: the overdue teams finally making it home, a frantic scramble for safety and cover, Evan shoving Teyla and Rodney to the ground, looking back, explosions and weapons fire, people tumbling through the 'gate, screams and shouting and confusion and then dead silence.

Blood, everywhere she looks and she tastes it on the back of her tongue. Teyla's hands are slick with it as she holds a soaked pressure bandage against Rodney's shoulder. Ronon wipes some out of his eyes before he snarls at Marie who doesn't give a damn about his attitude. The medics swarm the area, forcing the walking wounded to sit down and tending to those too weak to move. Evan gives her a warning glance before Carson drags him away to a waiting gurney and then she stops. People continue to move in a cacophony of blurs, but the image in the brief moment she pauses is seared into her mind.

They're intertwined in the center of the chaos, a yin and yang of blood and tears, the steady eye of an apocalyptic storm. He cradles her carefully in his arms, clinging to her as tightly as her fingers are interlaced in the straps of his vest. Nurses and Marines alike pull gently at their hands, trying to untangle one from the other, well aware that time is running short for both of them, but neither one lets go, senseless to the world around them. They're watching each other, silently talking on another plane altogether, living in a world that is their own and theirs alone. Half-Ausran or not, Elizabeth bleeds as any full-human would, her lifeblood mixing easily with John's own bloody wounds until the crimson pools have merged into one.

By the time her people pry the two of them apart, it might be too late: Elizabeth codes moments after they put her on a gurney and John follows a heartbeat later. Jennifer curses, having to choose between patients when Carson appears and takes the decision from her. She owes him a strong drink, if he's still awake at this hour and most likely not. Elizabeth is his patient, not hers (not after last time), and while both of them were near dying all those hours ago, it is Elizabeth who is still closer to death than John. It will be a long struggle to save them both and the fight has only begun, because Jennifer knows now that one can't live without the other. They _won't_ live without each other.

Even now, Jennifer can see their blood mixing on the cold floor, staining the smooth metal with a crimson that won't ever wash out, no matter how hard the Marines try. She knows that her hands have been scrubbed clean of her friends' lifeblood, but she still feels the stickiness on her skin, can smell the rust on her clothes and in her hair. In the darkness, it's almost as if she's drowning in their blood and suddenly, she needs a drink to hold back the bile in her mouth.

Her hands fumbling blindly with the whisky bottle, she knows that it's going to be a long time before she forgets, and even longer before she forgives herself if they die today or tomorrow or the day after that. She drowns half the tumbler and blames the burn in her throat and the tears on her cheeks on the harsh drink.

She knows that if they die, she'll never forgive herself. Their blood will be on her conscience, and no amount of water would ever be enough to wash her hands clean of the guilt.


	4. Chapter 4

**Indelible Stains**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Author's Note**: As part of a color fic meme, I was given the prompt _John/Elizabeth, blood-red._

* * *

Teyla stands underneath the flowering _kapuri_ trees, her hands loosely clasped in front of her, as she waits for the ceremony to begin. A gentle breeze plays with light fabric of her rich spring-green gown while her unbound hair dances in the wind. She tucks the stray strands behind her ear and continues to wait, savoring this moment.

John fidgets as he stands to her left, the warm sunlight gleaming off the commendations pinned to his uniform. She observes that he is indeed an exceedingly handsome man when he cares to dress in this fashion, but she knows he has only eyes for one woman and one woman alone. He is nearly oblivious to the crowd's presence before them, though a part of him remains constantly aware of his surroundings. The open air, however, is not the source of his agitation.

The deep, rolling call of the marriage drum chases away her stray thoughts and quiets the crowd. The wind picks up to a light gust, swaying the branches of the trees around them so that a shower of pale pink blossoms falls from the sky in a diaphanous curtain. As if summoned from thin air, Elizabeth appears on the other side of the clearing, her ivory gown a shining beacon against the cool shadows of the forest. She does not stand alone, but from the look in John's eyes, Teyla knows that she might as well have been, for he only sees Elizabeth, walking towards him in time to the low rumble of a single drum.

Behind Teyla, Wex begins to play a second drum, its slow, steady rhythm a half beat faster than that of Jinto's. As Elizabeth makes her way through a silent crowd of Lantean and Athosian guests, the young man quickens the tempo until he is in perfect counterpoint to his childhood friend, two heartbeats beating in a continuous pulse. Teyla can see the relaxed smile that curves Elizabeth's lips and the pure happiness in John's eyes as the moment they have all been waiting for since this story began draws closer to reality. Time contracts and lengthens with every beat. When the bride has finally come to stand underneath the curved branches, the music abruptly ceases.

For a moment, all they hear is the poignant silence. John and Elizabeth settle eyes on each other, and his lips curve in a small genuine smile as a faint blush spreads across her cheeks. Neither he nor she is young anymore, but Teyla sees them as beautiful and joyful as any of the many buoyant couples she has joined in her years. This day has been a dream for so long that to think it now true seems to be tempting the capricious fates to snatch it all away. So they wait, with baited breath, but they cannot wait forever.

A bird calls out to its mate somewhere deep in the woods and the spell is broken. Why wait to seize what joy there is in life, however brief and fleeting? Slipping into her role, Teyla steps forward from the shade and raises her hands to speak the first blessing, a benediction of welcome and safekeeping to the crowd gathered before her.

With a clear voice, she calls forth the witnesses—Evan and Jennifer—to testify of John and Elizabeth's decision to bind their lives together. Rodney and Carson come next, to speak of the couple's mutual devotion and adoration, a fierce protectiveness towards each other and their people. Mr. Woolsey and the General stand to grant their permission and give their blessings for this union. Despite his slightly casual wording of the traditional phrases of consent, Teyla looks into the serious eyes of the General and understands the sincerity he holds in his every act.

All of this plays out before a silent mass of people, and so she turns to them as a whole, one last rite of passage. She cries out a challenge, a chance for people to speak of secrets and lies, but the crowd remains quiet. After that heartbeat of silence, she turns to John, who steps forward to stand by her side. In the style of her people, she questions him as to his intentions, and he answers the invasive questions unflinchingly. There is no doubt that he loves Elizabeth and will treat her well, so Teyla turns to the bride. The questions are just as blunt and straightforward as the ones thrown at John, but it is no surprise that Elizabeth's joyful demeanor does not change throughout the conversation. She is honest and open in her emotions; she has nothing to hide.

Teyla smiles and signals to Elizabeth that it is time. John steps forward to face Elizabeth, both of them turning perpendicular to the crowd. He shyly helps her untie the knot of the crimson sash wrapped around her waist before Elizabeth slips the cloth away from her and presents the unfolded length to Teyla. She takes it from the bride and instructs her friends to clasp hands. When they have done so, she drapes the cloth over their interlaced fingers, wrapping the smooth fabric around their wrists before letting the tasseled ends drop towards the earth underneath them. As she symbolically binds them together, she calls upon the Ancestors to look kindly on this union, to bless this couple with fertility and safety, happiness and wealth. A drumbeat echoes her every word, two heartbeats singing into the sunlit day, first in steady counterpoint before gradually quickening.

As she speaks the final blessing, Teyla raises her arms to present the new husband and wife. By the moment the last word is spoken, Jinto and Wex have matched two heartbeats into one, just as two bloodlines have joined into a singular family today. Their hands still bound by the crimson sash, John and Elizabeth kiss briefly in front of the gathered crowd, a fervent gesture of happiness that is no less powerful for its brevity than any sign of love. Their people cheer, and red flower pedals fill the air as the newlywed couple turn and walk hand-in-hand down the aisle.

Teyla smiles to hear Elizabeth's shriek of surprised laughter when John sweeps her off her feet and carries her into 'jumper One, also known as _his_ 'jumper. The ends of the blood-red sash dance in the wind as the newlyweds disappear from view. They will certainly be delayed in rejoining the festivities, but she knows that no one will think it unseemly if the bride and groom reappear slightly flushed or mussed. There will be talk, of course, but that will pale in comparison to the comments that will fly when the tidings are known in perhaps a month or so from now.

In her questioning of Elizabeth, asking her of the reasons she chose John as her husband, Teyla had avoided the most obvious question, because there is no need to ask it. Elizabeth glows with an inner radiance, a joy that is not solely rooted in her marriage to the man she loves, and anyone who has watched her closely over the past few months will know that she has wrapped the sash far more loosely than she has before. Anyone who knows John well would also know, judging from the reverent way he has treated Elizabeth for the past three weeks or so and the tenderness in his eyes as he helped her undo the knot of her sash. These are two people who are deeply in love with each other, and who have not only been just married, but will soon be parents as well.

Blood leaves its own undeniable marks, binding one generation to another with no reprieve, but Love stains just as deeply, choosing two souls to unite into one life. For all that they have been through, John and Elizabeth would take none of it back. Blood has marked their skin, but Love has stained their souls.

Teyla knows that her friends can live with that.


End file.
